However, Birla says the energy inside the office was enormous. While Arthur Britto was designing the architecture on a whiteboard and David Schwartz was explaining the mechanics of the unique consensus system, the team clearly understood one thing: $XRP was the foundational layer of the entire story.
.@ashgoblue on the very early days at Ripple.
He said: "We knew this was going to be big, with $XRP as the foundation layer at the core of it."
"You could feel the energy in the office."
"Arthur was at the whiteboard, while David was in the other room talking about the $XRP… pic.twitter.com/8j9pdp17a7
— Vet (@Vet_X0) June 19, 2026
They were building infrastructure for the "Internet of Value" — an open financial network for the instant movement of tokenized assets and liquidity.
To test this concept in the real world, Ripple's team conducted its first retail experiment in late 2013. They managed to convince the manager of the nearby Red Door Cafe to accept payments in $XRP.
At the time, the token was worth only about two cents ($0.02), and at today's $XRP price, a latte from that experiment would have cost around $120–150. Birla jokingly calls it his personal "Bitcoin pizza" story and recalls that even then, the network was already demonstrating incredible built-in functionality.
Birla wants to carry this philosophy of an open financial system into Evernorth's current activities, as the company, which has accumulated 473 million $XRP on its balance sheet, plans to use $XRP Ledger as the base layer for launching regulated DeFi products, allowing retail investors to earn yield on equal terms with large funds.
According to the interview participants, after years of lawsuits and regulatory uncertainty, $XRP is finally returning to its true technological potential of built-in value exchange that was embedded in it from the very first cup of coffee at Red Door Cafe.
u.today
